A docudrama based on the book, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Oloudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vaasa the African, which was the first influential slave autobiography. When it was published in 1789, it fueled a growing anti-slavery movement in the U.S. and England. This production employs dramatic reconstruction, archival material and interviews with scholars. Equiano's narrative begins in the West African village where he was kidnapped into slavery in 1756. He was shipped to a Virginia plantation and then later sold again to a British naval officer. Here he learned to read and write, became a skilled trader, eventually bought his freedom and married into English society where he became a leading abolitionist.